`Bright Lights` Wallows As Dull, Unfunny Parable

Forget the image depicted in the advertisements for Bright Lights, Big City -- a slightly smirking Michael J. Fox with doe eyes and necktie askew, like a shy prep-school lad.

Then, check out the ad copy: ``It`s 4 a.m. What`s a nice guy like me doing in a life like this?``

What appears to be a droll, cosmopolitan comedy about a young man caught in a whirling lifestyle of the Big Apple, actually is a nasty and progressively depressing story of substance abuse and ruin.

Fox plays Jamie, an intelligent ``facts`` editor at a venerable, high-class magazine. But lately, his work has been slipping.

Jamie often is late to the office, he seems to have a continual sinus problem and he`s jittery.

Editor Clara, played by priggish Frances Sternhagen, warns Jamie: One more slip-up and you`re out.

Friends in the office try to console Jamie. After all, his beautiful fashion- model wife, Amanda, played blankly by Phoebe Cates (for all of three minutes), has left him.

And Jamie still grieves over the death of his mother, played well in flashback by Dianne Wiest. She suffered terribly with cancer.

Small wonder why Jamie wants to loosen up and party a little with a fast- moving friend, Tad, recklessly played by Kiefer Sutherland. A few double vodkas wouldn`t hurt. Some small talk with a pretty lady is fine. And the cocaine ... why, what`s life without drugs?

The trouble is, Jamie has grown a bit too fond of the ``Bolivian marching powder,`` which is beginning to drum a perpetual tune in his head -- at home, at discos and in the workplace.

Such is the theme of Bright Lights, Big City, based on Jay McInerney`s novel. But this is no comedy -- nor an American tragedy, for that matter.

Mostly, the film is a dull, dreary, one-note message movie about the insidiousness of cocaine use and how it can ruin even a swell fellow such as Jamie.

But is he really that swell? Jamie would have the audience believe that he has good reason to escape, considering all the problems he`s having. Funny how everyone else is wrong.

Once the ambiguity of the glamorizing of cocaine has had its effect, the film wallows about as an unfunny, misfiring, black comedy.

In fact, the role seems to handle Fox, far better than he handles it.

And don`t be swayed by the all-star billing. The majority of folks are merely walk-ons: John Houseman has a line of dialogue, Tracy Pollan has three brief scenes, Wiest has one scene, and William Hickey carries a ferret in the park and speaks for 30 seconds.

Jason Robards atrociously overacts as an alcoholic editor -- as if he would remain employed, staggering through the hallway and gazing goggle-eyed into the water cooler.

Also, brace yourself for a bizarre dream sequence about a comatose baby, plucked from the headlines of the tabloids. The special effects are numbing ... and so is the awkward metaphor related to Jamie`s plight.

Bright Lights, Big City is a dim, big bore, which paints an unreal picture of an extremely serious problem.

Jamie needs professional help, and not the kind that the addict can stumble upon for himself.

MOVIE REVIEW

1 star

Bright Lights, Big City

A young New York editor succumbs to cocaine addiction after his mother dies and his wife deserts him.

Credits: With Michael J. Fox, Kiefer Sutherland, Phoebe Cates. Directed by James Bridges. Written by Jay McInerney, based on his novel.